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Times of Trenton Letters to the Editor - Sept. 30

dinky.jpg

Passengers get off the Dinky at Princeton Station for one of the very last times before the platform was shut down at its former location. A temporary platform built 1,200 feet east will be the stop in downtown Princeton until Fall 2014, when construction on the new Princeton Station is complete.
(Jon Offredo/The Times of Trenton)

University moves Dinky because it can

I am deeply disturbed by the arrogant attitude of Princeton University toward the town and community of Princeton.

The Dinky station has now been moved almost to College Road. The new location is a very long walk from the center of town, particularly if one is pulling or carrying luggage.

Princeton was truly blessed with convenient rail connection to the main line. Most communities would value this connection, as does the town of Princeton. However, the university seems to feel that just because it has the financial resources, it should be allowed to do exactly what it pleases without regard to anyone else, even if it includes truncating this resource.

The historic gateway to Princeton, which combined residential buildings, offices and retail, has been destroyed. What was good enough for F. Scott Fitzgerald, John Kennedy, Bill Bradley and Brooke Shields will now become some sort of generic conglomeration.

What part of overpass and underpass does the university not understand? If the new, improved Arts Center must go in this location, why not have some consideration for the community?

--Ruth Sayer,
Princeton

Free speech can have consequences

David Thompson’s guest opinion piece “First Amendment freedom belongs to every American” (Sept. 17) conflates our constitutional right of free speech with our legal right to boycott products or fire people who do not abide by the folkways and mores of society.

Actor Alec Baldwin and conservative pundit Rush Limbaugh may say almost whatever they want without the fear of government censorship, and people offended by Messrs. Baldwin and Limbaugh have a legal right to boycott the products of those who sponsor those radio and TV personalities. Similarly, while the rodeo clown, whom Mr. Thompson implicitly defends, broke no laws — constitutional or otherwise — by donning a Barack Obama mask, he did insult many people’s sensibilities and was fired for that reason.

Now, Mr. Thompson’s examples of the IRS targeting certain groups and the McCarthy blacklists of the 1950s would seem to violate the Constitution. Both events were seen as the government’s attempt to quash certain citizens’ right of free speech or to prevent their right to peaceably assemble. But that’s not a “double standard,” as Mr. Thompson opines.

The First Amendment opens with “Congress shall make no law” because it was intended to place limits on our government. It was not intended to prevent us from boycotting products because we find their spokespeople unsavory or employers from firing people who violate their organization’s standards of decency.

--Donald M. Benjamin,
Plainsboro

Letter writer did get what he voted for

The writer of the letter “I didn’t get what I voted for” (Sept. 10) did get what he voted for. He definitely did not get Barry Goldwater, but he did get Lyndon B. Johnson (whom he voted for). In fact, President Johnson was an unabashed progressive as compared to the ultraconservative Goldwater.

LBJ initiated his Great Society agenda to eliminate poverty and racial injustice. Thanks to LBJ, senior citizens now enjoy Medicare, single-payer health insurance, and those below the poverty threshold are enrolled in Medicaid.

The Civil Rights Act, which outlawed job discrimination and segregation of public accommodations, was enacted in 1964. National Public Radio and Television were established during his presidency. These are a few of the accomplishments during LBJ’s term in office.

The writer did get President Barack Obama (whom he voted for) and not George W. Bush. The writer seems to have forgotten that under Mr. Obama’s watch, we concluded our involvement in Iraq, which was falsely started by the George W. Bush administration. We will soon withdraw all our troops from Afghanistan, another war started by the George W. Bush administration.

It has been five years since the collapse of Lehman Brothers. By the time President Obama took office, the financial markets had imploded and the Great Recession had already begun, with an unemployment rate of 10 percent.

Only long-term strong monetary and short-term strong fiscal action averted a Great Depression. Although the economy is still weak, the unemployment rate has decreased to approximately 7.3 percent. Of course, there are part-time workers and many have left the work force.
However, the economy would be in better shape if the Republicans would cooperate.

Instead, on the domestic front, the Republican mantra is “No” to essentially all of the Obama administration’s economic initiatives.

--Bernard Wright,
East Windsor

Calm the traffic in Mercerville

The number of people begging for help to slow down speeding motorists in Hamilton Township never ceases to amaze me.

For more than six years, I regularly appeared before Hamilton Township Council and called the township police department to ask for presence on my street, because of property damage and people making illegal U-turns there, including trucks and tractor-trailers.

I, too, have been subjected to hand gestures and disgusting verbal abuse yelled from trucks and cars as I slow down to enter my driveway. I have also requested a bicycle lane to the train station and a crosswalk at Norcross Circle.

While the rest of the township has received an abundance of traffic-calming measures, Mercerville has received nothing. I recently was horrified as traffic traveling northwest completely ignored the red lights flashing on a school bus that was picking up small children.

I don’t know why anyone in the Mercerville section of Hamilton would vote for our present government. They do nothing for us.

Trina V. Sargeant,
Hamilton

Hope for broader unity among churches

As a Catholic of Anglican obedience, I was delighted to read the article on Pope Francis, “Pope chides a church ‘obsessed’ with abortion, gays” (Sept. 20).

After his enthronement, he introduced himself as bishop of Rome, a title that warms the cockles of every Anglican heart. And his being from Latin America interested me.

In the early 1970s, the Episcopal House of Bishops urged priests to seek to form covenant agreements with clergy and parishes of other churches. I approached the ministers of various Protestant churches in town about entering into covenant agreements, but none was interested.

Having learned of a new Roman Catholic priest in a nearby parish who had just returned from working in Peru and, since I had just returned from working in Mexico, I went to visit and welcome him. In our conversation, I mentioned what the Episcopal House of Bishops had urged and I asked him if he would be interested in forming a covenant agreement between our two parishes. He answered, “Yes.” Out of that meeting grew a personal friendship as well as a covenant agreement between his Roman Catholic church and my Episcopal church, which our two bishops enthusiastically supported.

I have no prescience of what manifestation of ecumenism may occur in the coming years, but the fact that the recently appointed Archbishop of Canterbury and Pope Francis met in the Vatican and conferred is a positive for every Roman Catholic and Anglican, to say nothing of the future ecumenical interrelationship with the Orthodox and Protestant churches.